- Y’know, I had stated before that based on various developments, maybe Beijing wasn’t a good choice to host the Summer Olympics this year. After all, the city is suffering a major water shortage that is crippling local farmers and food-safety scares in the area have led U.S. Olympic officials to take along their own grub for American athletes to eat at the Games. But maybe all of that was premature and an overreaction on my part….or maybe not. Not when the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is commissioning studies to determine whether the wretched air quality in Beijing is bad enough that athletes will be put in serious danger by competing there, it’s not an overreaction. It’s true, the IOC did a study on the air quality in Beijing and to the surprise of exactly no one, they found that the conditions are awful. In a country with 16 of the 20 most polluted cities in the world, Beijing’s air is so bad that the IOC is now drawing up contingency plans in case the polluted air is so bad that is poses a health risk to athletes participating in endurance events. Yes, the IOC is trying to figure out what to do if the host city is so heavily polluted that it can’t actually host certain events. Call me old fashioned, but I firmly believe that if your city is going to host the Olympics, then it should be able to host all of the events. I don’t remember Barcelona, Atlanta, Sydney, Salt Lake or Lillehammer having to draw up last-minute contingency plans because their city’s air was in such poor shape that athletes’ health was as risk. Good job on that one, Beijing. I guess last week’s promise that your air would be clean enough that there would be no problems and no danger to athletes was a flat-out lie. Does anyone know if it’s too late to rip the games from Beijing entirely? Maybe move them to a place more capable and cleaner, perhaps Scottsdale or Fresno. Heck, even Bismarck would be an upgrade at this point.
- Coaches at all levels of every sport love motivational ploys. Whether it’s the classic (and lame) ripping the names off the back of the jerseys, playing the disrespect card, showing clips from inspirational movies like Gladiator or something else, you can bet that at any given time, some coach in some sport, somewhere is employing it. However, not too many coaches go as far as University of Florida men’s basketball coach Bill Donovan did this past week. Donovan was concerned that his team wasn’t as focused and on-point as he wanted, so he decided to take drastic steps to get their attention. After the Gators flamed out in the SEC Tournament and cost themselves an NCAA Tournament bid, Billy the Kid kicked his team out of their new, $12 million practice gym. That in and of itself isn’t unprecedented, because coaches are known for that sort of ploy. But Donovan wasn’t done; the then ripped his players’ gear, taking away their jerseys and practice threads. So now the UF players can’t use their gym and they don’t have their gear. Maybe they could use the chance to hit the weight room and work out, right? Nope. Donovan booted them from the weight room as well, the third step in his plan. Close behind was the fourth step, locking the players out of the video room. So they can't practice in their gym, wear their gear, use the weight room or watch film. Basically, they’re preparing for their NIT game against San Diego State in some secondary gym, wearing whatever they can pull out of the dirty clothes pile in their dorm room or apartment and working out on the same student rec center workout equipment as the dude they sit beside in their philosophy class three days a week. Memo to UF players: Learn your lesson. Start doing what your coach asks and stop pissing him off. Billy Donovan has put up with all his going to take from you and he’s swinging back. Unless you want him looking to rip your scholarship, have you expelled from school and run out of Gainesville, you need to get your act together. The NIT may not be the prestigious NCAA Tournament and you may be down after coming off back-to-back national championships and now playing in a second-tier tournament, but at this point you can’t afford to play poorly at this point.
- David Hernandez is a loser. I can say that without equivocation because of two things: 1) he appeared on American Karaoke and 2) he is a former stripper. People who take part in even one of those two activities are automatically a loser, but someone who has done both of them…yikes. Best of all, I can say these things without ever having witnessed D. Hernandez ply his trade in either one of these roles. The day when I watch American Karaoke is the day someone is holding two guns to my head and threatening to simultaneously lop off both my arms and legs if I don’t watch. However, judging from Hernandez’s comments after being kicked off the world’s biggest karaoke contest, he doesn’t really get it. He’s not famous, he’s not talented and he’s not someone that people outside of his immediate family care about. “This isn’t the end of David Hernandez,” he said in a statement. First, my man, you need to stop it. Stop referring to yourself in the third person like you matter. Heck, even for someone famous, that’s a questionable play. For a nobody karaoke-er, it’s just wrong. “Adversity is my best friend,” he went on to say. No my man, if adversity were really your best friend, adversity would have told you not to become a male stripper or to appear on American Karaoke. See, that’s what best friends do, they tell you the truth when you’re about to embarrass yourself. They try to stop you from making a total fool of yourself, and clearly no one did that for you. Maybe being on that show has warped your since of reality, but once you detox from it, maybe you’ll start coming back to reality and understanding that you are no one and that none of us want to hear from you ever again.
- You can look at the following situation in one of two ways. Either you see that an Amtrak train struck and three employees inspecting train tracks outside of Providence, R.I., killing one of them and focus solely on the tragedy here. Undoubtedly, that tragedy is part of the story and you feel terrible for the friends and families of the one man who was killed here. That being said, if you’re looking for a silver lining here, you can find it in the fact that at least an Amtrak train was actually on the tracks where it was supposed to be and not careening off those tracks causing a crash with dozens of fatalities. This just goes to prove that it doesn’t really matter what Amtrak trains do, they’re death machines. Stay on the tracks or go off of them, people die. Heck, I wouldn’t want any part of those trains from the mining of the metal that goes into building them to the process of scrapping them once they are out of operation. Amtrak is either cursed or just incredibly dangerous by nature, so you might want to make plans to steer clear of anything and everything even remotely associated with the company.
- The clock is ticking on the Pennsylvania presidential primary and for the next month-plus, residents of the state are going to be subject of an all-out barrage by both Barack Obama and Hank Clinton. They’ll also be the subject of national scrutiny because among all of the states left to hold their primaries, Pennsylvania has the most delegates to yield with 158. North Carolina is next in line with 115 delegates, but Pennsylvania is in the nation’s crosshairs as its April 22 primary approaches. As you might imagine, I’m in a state of sheer terror because this could be a devastating day for me and our nation if Hank Clinton gets the lopsided victory she’s hoping for and is able to significantly close the gap between herself and Obama. I am begging Pennsylvania Democrats right now, make sure you are registered to vote and make sure you do the right thing: Vote B.O. It doesn’t matter if you watch the debate on a TBD date that ABC News will host featuring Obama and Hank, because your mind should be made up right now. Hank Clinton and that dude’s reign of terror can’t be allowed anywhere near the Oval Office, so Pennsylvanians need to step up and help us all out. Same goes for you, North Carolinians. If your two states can get the job done, come April Hank Clinton’s campaign will be dead and our national nightmare will be over. Heck, I’ll even go so far as to encourage residents of Guam to turn out in force for their primary and vote B.O., because ultimately we can leave nothing to chance and leave no cracks in the wall for Hank to creep through. So circle April 22 on your calendar, because it’s either going to be a historically great day for our nation or it will be one of the most devastating days in our history, but there will be no in between.
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